EDGAR RICHARDSON, 82, DIES; ART HISTORIAN AND ARCHIVIST

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March 29, 1985, Page 00020 The New York Times Archives

Edgar P. Richardson, a leading art historian and a co-founder of the Archives of American art, died Wednesday at the Cathedral Village Retirement Community in Philadelphia after having suffered several strokes in recent weeks. He was 82 years old.

As an author and as the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, a post he held from 1945 to 1962, Mr. Richardson made a strong impression on American art scholarship. Among his many books in the field, the best known, perhaps, is ''Painting in America: The Story of 450 Years.'' It is still considered a classic in the field.

While researching his books in the 1930's and 40's, Mr. Richardson noted the difficulty in locating documentary material on artists' lives, such as diaries, notebooks, dealers' records and letters. This led him, in 1954, to co- found the Archives of American Art in Detroit with Lawrence A. Fleischman, then a Detroit businessman and art collector. In 1970, the archives moved from Detroit to Washington, where it became a branch of the Smithsonian Institution.

''For most of his life he has been having a love affair with American painting,'' the art critic Aline B. Saarinen wrote of Mr. Richardson in The New York Times in 1957. ''The fact that the affair has been conducted with the highest standards of scholarship and an almost Calvinist respect for truth has made it nonetheless ardent.''

Mr. Richardson was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., in 1902. He received a B.A. degree at Williams College in 1925, and studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1925 to 1928. He served as assistant director of the Detroit Institute of Art from 1933 to 1945, and as the museum's director from 1945 to 1962.

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After leaving the Detroit Institute of Art in 1962, Mr. Richardson was director of the H. F. du Pont Winterthur Museum until 1966. In the middle 1960's, he became art adviser to John D. Rockefeller 3d, a post he retained until Mr. Rockefeller's death in 1978.

Among his many honors were the Smithson Medal of the Smithsonian Institution and the Legion of Honor in France.

He is survived by his wife, Constance Richardson, of Philadelphia. A memorial service will be held April 13 at 11:30 A.M. at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.

A version of this obituary appears in print on March 29, 1985, on Page A00020 of the National edition with the headline: EDGAR RICHARDSON, 82, DIES; ART HISTORIAN AND ARCHIVIST. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe